February 01, 2010

Milton Acorn's "I've Tasted My Blood" by Ron Dart

You could go for years without seeing him (Acorn), yet he’d always be there somehow, a great craggy presence at the back of your mind, a gnarled tree in silhouette on the horizon.

Gwendolyn MacEwen

Acorn is an affirmative voice, a gentleness masked in ferocity, the best of our traditional wisdom expressed in forceful up-to-date diction.

Fred Cogswell

I have called myself many things; but I guess the one that

sticks is ‘Revolutionary Poet’—that is revolutionary in the

political sense, not the poetic sense.

Milton Acorn

I have in my library a 1stedition of Milton Acorn’s I’ve Tasted My Blood (1969). The poetic missive is now a rather expensive collectors item, and the book won the much heralded ‘People’s Poet Award’ in 1970 midst much controversy. I’ve Tasted My Blood threads together some of the best poetry of Acorn’s earlier books: In Love and Anger (1956), The Brain’s the Target (1960), Against A League of Liars (1960) and Jawbreakers (1963). Fiddlehead did a special issue of Acorn’s poetry in 1963: 58 Poems by Milton Acorn. But, it is in I’ve Tasted My Blood that the breadth, energy and depth of Acorn emerged in all its demanding and multifaceted fullness.

I’ve Tasted my Blood went into a fourth printing in 1978 when Steel Rail Educational Publishing held Acorn high as their political poet par excellence. The 1978 edition of I’ve Tasted My Blood has a compact and succinct ‘Preface’ by Acorn that offers the reader a way to understand the reasons for the controversy about the book in 1970 and, equally important, a key into how to read the book, the important midpoint transition and the turn to a distinctive form of political poetry. The fact that I’ve Tasted My Blood is a classic work of Canadian political poetry, and the fact that the missive generated such controversy amongst the literary elite in Canada means that to be a Canadian is to have read, internalized and thoroughly digested this work of probing insight. There can be little doubt that George Grant’s Lament for a Nation and Milton Acorn’s I’ve Tasted My Blood were two of the most important literary books to be published in Canada in the 1960s, and both books remain at the forefront of Canadian nationalist thought.

Al Purdy, Acorn’s oft times literary and philosophical sparing partner, wrote a telling and much reread ‘Introduction’ to I’ve Tasted My Blood. There is much the reader can learn about Acorn from Purdy’s poignant historical and comparative reflections about Acorn and his contemporaries, and the ‘Introduction’ asks of the reader many a read. The goal is, though, to immerse the mind and imagination in I’ve Tasted My Blood, and this we will do for the remainder of this essay.

Acorn made it clear in his ‘Preface’ to I’ve Tasted My Blood that there is a logic to the book, and there is a discernable unfolding that needs to be kept in mind.

If things were perfect in this imperfect world, I’ve Tasted My Blood would consist of two volumes. The first, consisting of the first half of this opus, would be Jawbreakers: the second half would have been namedPoems Committed…the dividing line between these two sections being roughly where the two short stories are inserted.

There is, indeed, a distinctive transition ‘where the two short stories are inserted’. The ‘first half of this opus’ does hold the reader with many fine poems that fit the genres of nature, social commentary, confessional, people and love poetry, but the political fire of Acorn has not turned into a blaze. The short stories, ‘The Legend of the Winged Dingus’ and ‘The Red and Green Pony’ are works of parabolic significance of the highest order. These short stories need to be read often, entered into and pondered many a time.

I think it is fair to say that these two tales are the portals into the world of Acorn’s poetic and political vision. We can, perhaps, linger at this intersection point, and, in doing so, make sense of the different path taken in Acorn’s thinking from part 1 to Part 2 in I’ve Tasted My Blood.

‘The Legend of the Winged Dingus’ is a winsome, puckish and arrow to bull’s eye mini-drama of the power of love to unite and the frightening consequences of ignoring the unitive power of love. Those who ignore the healing nature of love will, in time, be victims of such a spurning. Love, for Acorn, had both personal and political implications. ‘The Legend of the Winged Dingus’ can be read at both a literal and literary level. The tale told is about Daniel, a young Jewish boy, coming of age sexually, and the familial and social forces at work to suppress his erotic urges. Daniel bends to and obeys his elders and becomes a successful business man. There was in the Kingdom, though, a lovely princess, and Daniel’s dingus could not but help be drawn to such a beauty. The princess is also denied her longing, and she becomes, in time, a spendthrift and takes her kingdom in debt. Daniel takes advantage of the erratic impulses of the denied princess, and he loans her many a copper to keep the Kingdom afloat. Both Daniel and the princess have lost their souls for different reasons, but, at the deepest level, both are out of touch with the meaning of eros (love) at its many levels. The legend ends with wealth and war being the dominant forces, and the consequences of denied eros plain for all to see.

‘The Red and Green Pony’ is even more to the point and grounded in the political and social problems of the 1960s then ‘The Legend of the Winged Dingus’. The ‘The Red and Green Pony’ is a form of magic realism, and it has a convincing bite to it. Red and green, of course, are the colors of left of centre politics and ecological issues. The reality of environmental pollution dominates the tale, and the clash between idealism and realism is at the core of the parable. The fact that Tommy is the lead actor in the short story cannot be missed. Tommy Douglas was the leader of the NDP at the time, and his passion for social justice was seen as much too idealistic, too far left of centre, and a naïve living in a dream world. The red and green pony in the story mixes green and red in a way that they cannot be separated, but Tommy’s parents think he is out of touch with reality. The question that will not quit is this: who defines and creates our notions of reality? And, what happens when we accept notions of reality that lead to the oppression of other people? Tommy’s parents represent the status quo that Tommy, when he meets the red and green pony, is urged to question and doubt. ‘The Red and Green Pony’ is one of the best and most readable parables written by a Canadian in the 1960s, and Acorn could have won an award for the short story.

‘The Legend of the Winged Dingus’ and ‘The Red and Green Pony’, as mentioned above, is a turning point in I’ve Tasted My Blood. The book becomes decidedly more political, intense and to the point after the rather graphic and not to be forgotten tales that were so well told.

There are poems, obviously, not to miss in Part I of “I’ve Tasted My Blood. ‘I’ve Tasted My Blood’ is the opening poem in the collection, and it is worth memorizing. The other poem in Part I that shares the same demanding intensity is ‘I Shout Love’. Both poems are in a class above the other poems, but many are the tender and insightful poem on love, nature, social commentary and simple descriptions of people and places. It is understandable why Acorn charmed, wooed and wed so many to his poetic vision—there are so many places he is willing to go to both in the soul and society, and the terrain he dares to trek is described in a most accessible, readable and humane way. Acorn saw himself as a street poet, a poet of the people, and, as such, he knew had had to speak in their idiom and voice. Unlike many poets who seem incapable of articulating their deepest thoughts in a way that communicates to a wide range of people, Acorn had the ability and cultivated the means of speaking in a way that the simplest person could understand. And, the poems went straight to the heart and head, and, above all, the conscience. Acorn could be called the Canadian poet that spoke from his conscience to the conscience of the Canadian people. This was not a poetry of ambiguous consciousness, but of conscience, and this is why Acorn will always be with us.

Part II of I’ve Tasted My Blood walks the reader into the more political and leftist leanings of Acorn, and many of the poems in this section are keepers that should not be missed or ignored. There are touching and tender poems, and there are poems like spears that go straight into the flesh of the mind and imagination. Acorn’s poems on ‘Protesting the Murder of Ernest Hemingway’, ‘Where is Che Guevara?’, ‘The Assassination of Kennedy’, ‘In VictorySquare’, ‘The Canadian Statue of Liberty Speaks to the U.S. Draft Dodger’, ‘The Natural History of Elephants’ and ‘Lover That I hope You Are’ are vintage Acorn. Part II is replete with one poem after another that holds the attention of the reader with apt and graphic imagery that remains stored within the soul well after the meditative read is done and over.

I’ve Tasted My Blood is a work of poetic genius that covers the full gamut of the human soul, society, politics, love and the complex nature of life’s journey. It should be in the Canadian hall of fame of classic books of poetry.In short, I’ve Tasted My Blood is a must read to be minimally articulate and aware about the distinctive Canadian literary tradition and an accessible poetry of and for the people.